The Iron Heel

by Jack London

  CHAPTER IV

  SLAVES OF THE MACHINE

  The more I thought of Jackson's arm, the more shaken I was. I wasconfronted by the concrete. For the first time I was seeing life. Myuniversity life, and study and culture, had not been real. I had learnednothing but theories of life and society that looked all very well onthe printed page, but now I had seen life itself. Jackson's arm was afact of life. "The fact, man, the irrefragable fact!" of Ernest's wasringing in my consciousness.

  It seemed monstrous, impossible, that our whole society was basedupon blood. And yet there was Jackson. I could not get away from him.Constantly my thought swung back to him as the compass to the Pole. Hehad been monstrously treated. His blood had not been paid for in orderthat a larger dividend might be paid. And I knew a score of happycomplacent families that had received those dividends and by that muchhad profited by Jackson's blood. If one man could be so monstrouslytreated and society move on its way unheeding, might not many men be somonstrously treated? I remembered Ernest's women of Chicago who toiledfor ninety cents a week, and the child slaves of the Southern cottonmills he had described. And I could see their wan white hands, fromwhich the blood had been pressed, at work upon the cloth out of whichhad been made my gown. And then I thought of the Sierra Mills and thedividends that had been paid, and I saw the blood of Jackson upon mygown as well. Jackson I could not escape. Always my meditations led meback to him.

  Down in the depths of me I had a feeling that I stood on the edge ofa precipice. It was as though I were about to see a new and awfulrevelation of life. And not I alone. My whole world was turning over.There was my father. I could see the effect Ernest was beginning to haveon him. And then there was the Bishop. When I had last seen him he hadlooked a sick man. He was at high nervous tension, and in his eyes therewas unspeakable horror. From the little I learned I knew that Ernest hadbeen keeping his promise of taking him through hell. But what scenes ofhell the Bishop's eyes had seen, I knew not, for he seemed too stunnedto speak about them.

  Once, the feeling strong upon me that my little world and all the worldwas turning over, I thought of Ernest as the cause of it; and also Ithought, "We were so happy and peaceful before he came!" And the nextmoment I was aware that the thought was a treason against truth, andErnest rose before me transfigured, the apostle of truth, with shiningbrows and the fearlessness of one of Gods own angels, battling for thetruth and the right, and battling for the succor of the poor and lonelyand oppressed. And then there arose before me another figure, theChrist! He, too, had taken the part of the lowly and oppressed,and against all the established power of priest and pharisee. And Iremembered his end upon the cross, and my heart contracted with a pangas I thought of Ernest. Was he, too, destined for a cross?--he, with hisclarion call and war-noted voice, and all the fine man's vigor of him!

  And in that moment I knew that I loved him, and that I was meltingwith desire to comfort him. I thought of his life. A sordid, harsh, andmeagre life it must have been. And I thought of his father, who had liedand stolen for him and been worked to death. And he himself had goneinto the mills when he was ten! All my heart seemed bursting with desireto fold my arms around him, and to rest his head on my breast--his headthat must be weary with so many thoughts; and to give him rest--justrest--and easement and forgetfulness for a tender space.

  I met Colonel Ingram at a church reception. Him I knew well and hadknown well for many years. I trapped him behind large palms and rubberplants, though he did not know he was trapped. He met me with theconventional gayety and gallantry. He was ever a graceful man,diplomatic, tactful, and considerate. And as for appearance, he wasthe most distinguished-looking man in our society. Beside him even thevenerable head of the university looked tawdry and small.

  And yet I found Colonel Ingram situated the same as the unletteredmechanics. He was not a free agent. He, too, was bound upon the wheel.I shall never forget the change in him when I mentioned Jackson's case.His smiling good nature vanished like a ghost. A sudden, frightfulexpression distorted his well-bred face. I felt the same alarm that Ihad felt when James Smith broke out. But Colonel Ingram did not curse.That was the slight difference that was left between the workingman andhim. He was famed as a wit, but he had no wit now. And, unconsciously,this way and that he glanced for avenues of escape. But he was trappedamid the palms and rubber trees.

  Oh, he was sick of the sound of Jackson's name. Why had I brought thematter up? He did not relish my joke. It was poor taste on my part,and very inconsiderate. Did I not know that in his profession personalfeelings did not count? He left his personal feelings at home whenhe went down to the office. At the office he had only professionalfeelings.

  "Should Jackson have received damages?" I asked.

  "Certainly," he answered. "That is, personally, I have a feeling that heshould. But that has nothing to do with the legal aspects of the case."

  He was getting his scattered wits slightly in hand.

  "Tell me, has right anything to do with the law?" I asked.

  "You have used the wrong initial consonant," he smiled in answer.

  "Might?" I queried; and he nodded his head. "And yet we are supposed toget justice by means of the law?"

  "That is the paradox of it," he countered. "We do get justice."

  "You are speaking professionally now, are you not?" I asked.

  Colonel Ingram blushed, actually blushed, and again he looked anxiouslyabout him for a way of escape. But I blocked his path and did not offerto move.

  "Tell me," I said, "when one surrenders his personal feelings to hisprofessional feelings, may not the action be defined as a sort ofspiritual mayhem?"

  I did not get an answer. Colonel Ingram had ingloriously bolted,overturning a palm in his flight.

  Next I tried the newspapers. I wrote a quiet, restrained, dispassionateaccount of Jackson's case. I made no charges against the men with whomI had talked, nor, for that matter, did I even mention them. I gavethe actual facts of the case, the long years Jackson had worked in themills, his effort to save the machinery from damage and the consequentaccident, and his own present wretched and starving condition. Thethree local newspapers rejected my communication, likewise did the twoweeklies.

  I got hold of Percy Layton. He was a graduate of the university, hadgone in for journalism, and was then serving his apprenticeship asreporter on the most influential of the three newspapers. He smiled whenI asked him the reason the newspapers suppressed all mention of Jacksonor his case.

  "Editorial policy," he said. "We have nothing to do with that. It's upto the editors."

  "But why is it policy?" I asked.

  "We're all solid with the corporations," he answered. "If you paidadvertising rates, you couldn't get any such matter into the papers. Aman who tried to smuggle it in would lose his job. You couldn't get itin if you paid ten times the regular advertising rates."

  "How about your own policy?" I questioned. "It would seem your functionis to twist truth at the command of your employers, who, in turn, obeythe behests of the corporations."

  "I haven't anything to do with that." He looked uncomfortable for themoment, then brightened as he saw his way out. "I, myself, do not writeuntruthful things. I keep square all right with my own conscience. Ofcourse, there's lots that's repugnant in the course of the day's work.But then, you see, that's all part of the day's work," he wound upboyishly.

  "Yet you expect to sit at an editor's desk some day and conduct apolicy."

  "I'll be case-hardened by that time," was his reply.

  "Since you are not yet case-hardened, tell me what you think right nowabout the general editorial policy."

  "I don't think," he answered quickly. "One can't kick over the ropesif he's going to succeed in journalism. I've learned that much, at anyrate."

  And he nodded his young head sagely.

  "But the right?" I persisted.

  "You don't understand the game. Of course it's all right, because itcomes out all right, don't you see?"

 
; "Delightfully vague," I murmured; but my heart was aching for the youthof him, and I felt that I must either scream or burst into tears.

  I was beginning to see through the appearances of the society in which Ihad always lived, and to find the frightful realities that were beneath.There seemed a tacit conspiracy against Jackson, and I was aware of athrill of sympathy for the whining lawyer who had ingloriously foughthis case. But this tacit conspiracy grew large. Not alone was it aimedagainst Jackson. It was aimed against every workingman who was maimed inthe mills. And if against every man in the mills, why not against everyman in all the other mills and factories? In fact, was it not true ofall the industries?

  And if this was so, then society was a lie. I shrank back from my ownconclusions. It was too terrible and awful to be true. But there wasJackson, and Jackson's arm, and the blood that stained my gown anddripped from my own roof-beams. And there were many Jacksons--hundredsof them in the mills alone, as Jackson himself had said. Jackson I couldnot escape.

  I saw Mr. Wickson and Mr. Pertonwaithe, the two men who held most of thestock in the Sierra Mills. But I could not shake them as I had shakenthe mechanics in their employ. I discovered that they had an ethicsuperior to that of the rest of society. It was what I may call thearistocratic ethic or the master ethic.* They talked in large ways ofpolicy, and they identified policy and right. And to me they talked infatherly ways, patronizing my youth and inexperience. They were the mosthopeless of all I had encountered in my quest. They believed absolutelythat their conduct was right. There was no question about it, nodiscussion. They were convinced that they were the saviours of society,and that it was they who made happiness for the many. And they drewpathetic pictures of what would be the sufferings of the working classwere it not for the employment that they, and they alone, by theirwisdom, provided for it.

  * Before Avis Everhard was born, John Stuart Mill, in his essay, ON LIBERTY, wrote: "Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality emanates from its class interests and its class feelings of superiority."

  Fresh from these two masters, I met Ernest and related my experience. Helooked at me with a pleased expression, and said:

  "Really, this is fine. You are beginning to dig truth for yourself. Itis your own empirical generalization, and it is correct. No man in theindustrial machine is a free-will agent, except the large capitalist,and he isn't, if you'll pardon the Irishism.* You see, the mastersare quite sure that they are right in what they are doing. That is thecrowning absurdity of the whole situation. They are so tied by theirhuman nature that they can't do a thing unless they think it is right.They must have a sanction for their acts.

  * Verbal contradictions, called BULLS, were long an amiable weakness of the ancient Irish.

  "When they want to do a thing, in business of course, they must waittill there arises in their brains, somehow, a religious, or ethical, orscientific, or philosophic, concept that the thing is right. And thenthey go ahead and do it, unwitting that one of the weaknesses of thehuman mind is that the wish is parent to the thought. No matter whatthey want to do, the sanction always comes. They are superficialcasuists. They are Jesuitical. They even see their way to doing wrongthat right may come of it. One of the pleasant and axiomatic fictionsthey have created is that they are superior to the rest of mankind inwisdom and efficiency. Therefrom comes their sanction to manage thebread and butter of the rest of mankind. They have even resurrected thetheory of the divine right of kings--commercial kings in their case.*

  * The newspapers, in 1902 of that era, credited the president of the Anthracite Coal Trust, George F. Baer, with the enunciation of the following principle: "The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the property interests of the country."

  "The weakness in their position lies in that they are merelybusiness men. They are not philosophers. They are not biologists norsociologists. If they were, of course all would be well. A business manwho was also a biologist and a sociologist would know, approximately,the right thing to do for humanity. But, outside the realm of business,these men are stupid. They know only business. They do not know mankindnor society, and yet they set themselves up as arbiters of the fates ofthe hungry millions and all the other millions thrown in. History, someday, will have an excruciating laugh at their expense."

  I was not surprised when I had my talk out with Mrs. Wickson and Mrs.Pertonwaithe. They were society women.* Their homes were palaces. Theyhad many homes scattered over the country, in the mountains, on lakes,and by the sea. They were tended by armies of servants, and their socialactivities were bewildering. They patronized the university and thechurches, and the pastors especially bowed at their knees in meeksubservience.** They were powers, these two women, what of the moneythat was theirs. The power of subsidization of thought was theirs to aremarkable degree, as I was soon to learn under Ernest's tuition.

  * SOCIETY is here used in a restricted sense, a common usage of the times to denote the gilded drones that did no labor, but only glutted themselves at the honey-vats of the workers. Neither the business men nor the laborers had time or opportunity for SOCIETY. SOCIETY was the creation of the idle rich who toiled not and who in this way played.

  ** "Bring on your tainted money," was the expressed sentiment of the Church during this period.

  They aped their husbands, and talked in the same large ways aboutpolicy, and the duties and responsibilities of the rich. They wereswayed by the same ethic that dominated their husbands--the ethic oftheir class; and they uttered glib phrases that their own ears did notunderstand.

  Also, they grew irritated when I told them of the deplorable conditionof Jackson's family, and when I wondered that they had made novoluntary provision for the man. I was told that they thanked no onefor instructing them in their social duties. When I asked them flatlyto assist Jackson, they as flatly refused. The astounding thing about itwas that they refused in almost identically the same language, and thisin face of the fact that I interviewed them separately and that one didnot know that I had seen or was going to see the other. Their commonreply was that they were glad of the opportunity to make it perfectlyplain that no premium would ever be put on carelessness by them; norwould they, by paying for accident, tempt the poor to hurt themselves inthe machinery.*

  * In the files of the OUTLOOK, a critical weekly of the period, in the number dated August 18, 1906, is related the circumstance of a workingman losing his arm, the details of which are quite similar to those of Jackson's case as related by Avis Everhard.

  And they were sincere, these two women. They were drunk with convictionof the superiority of their class and of themselves. They had asanction, in their own class-ethic, for every act they performed. As Idrove away from Mrs. Pertonwaithe's great house, I looked back atit, and I remembered Ernest's expression that they were bound to themachine, but that they were so bound that they sat on top of it.